Optimal waist circumference cutoff points for the determination of abdominal obesity and detection of cardiovascular risk factors among adult Egyptian population.

Objective: To determine the best anthropometric measurement of obesity, and its optimal cutoff, that best predicts the presence of cardiovascular risk factors among adult Egyptian population.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study including a representative randomly chosen sample of the adult Egyptian population from all Alexandria Districts (the second largest governorate in Egypt) based on the multistage random technique. It included 3209 subjects (1567 men, 1642 women) aged 18-80 years from urban and rural areas.